He was denied
parole, and the parole commissioner exceeded her autho­rity by deferring his next
parole hearing for 24 months, instead of the 12 months, as required by
regarding parole - the only rule refer­encing the length of a
deferment provides that reconsideration of a denial of parole "shall
not be deferred longer than 12 months except with the written approval of
the chairperson or designee, Wis Admin Code&.PAC 1.06(2) (Oct 2000).

Petitioner
contends that the decision denying him parole was contrary to law because it violated the requirements of the
Wisconsin Administrative Code and
Statutes. He is asking the court to issue .a writ of certiorari to review the record of the parole commissioner's
decision.

Petitioner alleges
that the decision was erroneous in the following Ways:

(2)petitioner was not allowed to present evidence at the • parole hearing that might
reasonably make the determination

of the
decision in question more in favor of a discretionary parole;
and

(3) respondent relied on false
information in deciding to deny petitioner a parole;

b)That the respondent's actions
were arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable and represented his
will and not his judgment when he approved the commissioner's
recommendation to defer petitioner's parole to his Mandatory Release
of cI-&cv'd basedsolely on the information that petitioner
had not "completed" the SOTP
and made the decision not to return to the SOTP.

c)That the respondent erred in his
interpretation of Wis. Adm. Code & PAC 1.06(7)(c) when he
made the decision to approve the commissioner' Mandatory
Release deferral, based solely on the petitioner not being
"parolable". . .without a "successful completion" of the
SOTP.

The petitioner prays for the relief that the granted
and that respondent's decision be reversed.

General reasons for action taken:

1) You have not served sufficient time for punishment; 3)
program participation has not been satisfactory;

5) release at this time would involve an unreasonable
risk to the public.

The Parole Commissioner arbitrarily used PAC 106 (16)(b);
the inmate has not served sufficient time so
that release would not depreciate the seriousness
of the offense. Sufficient time is not identified.

the
inmate has demonstrated satisfactory adjustment to the institution
Pac 1.06(16)(d); V

the inmate can complete programming in the community
without presenting an undue risk PAC 1.06(16)(e) 2, - the inmate
will pay for his program....

....the
inmate has not refused or neglected to perform required or assigned duties PAC
1.06(16)(d);

the
inmate has not been able to gain entry into programming and release
would not present an undue risk PAC 1.06(16)(E) 3;

the inmate has developed an adequate release plan PAC 1.06(16)(F); the
inmate is elderly, in his mid seventies and would be 81 if had to' serve his
MR.

The inmate argues that parole release is
a determination of whether he is free to live in the community or must instead be
isolated and confines in prison, see in Greenholtz V. Inmates of Nebraska Penal
and Correctional Complex (S Ct 1979)

The
inmate Richard Patenaude was an upstanding citizen‑he was a volunteer
fireman for 44 years - shop supervisor for 18 years, carpenter for 15 years, a
WSC Director for 15 years, Marrinete City Village Board 12 years, snowmobile
instructor 15 years - he is an organ donor
-. he was married for 50+ years. During his time as a volunteer fireman, he
risk his own life-ran into a burning building, saved a little girl.

His compass assessment is low - the
static 99 is low for repeat criminology. He has taken counseling, was
discharged. He is willing, able to pay for additional counseling as well as
paying for his home monitored supervision, via a tracker. He is willing to be
restricted to his home, will pay for 24 hour television - electronic
monitoring.

He is not a threat to the community; he
made a serious error of judgment at the age of 60 years - he has no other
criminal records.

The inmate states that he has truly done
his work - he did counseling - was discharged - he is willing to pay forcontinued counseling
- the psychological and emotional work. He has really looked at everything that happened, and because

of his high level of awareness, he is willing to be
monitored;...

The
Inmate argues his denial of parole is but a de facto life sentence.

But what of life
expectancy, and specifically of table of life expectancy? What role should they play in sentencing?
Life-expectancy tables,lump together large number of people who have only a few
things in common,

such
as, in this case, age, race, and sex. The set of black men aged 70 to 74, estimated by the Census Bureau to have included
345,000 menin 2010, U.S. Census
Bureau, 'Tab1e 15. Projections.-of the Black Alone
Population by Age and Sex for the United States: 2010 to 2050,"

www.census.gov/population/www/projections/files/nations/summary/np2008­t15.xls[*663) (visited June 1, 2012), actually contains a range of life expectancies. Some of these men will die within the year;
some will live to 100 or even a few
years beyond that; the rest will die in
between the extremes. All it means to say that the inmate when
he was 70 had a life expectancy of 12.4 years is that the average person
in the heterogeneous group to which he belongs (black 70-year­old
men) can be expected to live 12.4 more years, implying that approxi­mately
half will die sooner and the other half later. (It would be' exactly
half if 12.4 were the median rather than average age of death of
members of the group.) It doesn't mean that the inmate will not

die in prison; he very may well; the probability that
he will die

before
he is released can be calculated, either from statistics concern­ing the
experience of his group, or, with greater accuracy, from more refined statistics that would narrow the group to
black 70-year-olds whose physical condition is similar to the defendant's. But
even the most refined statistical
calculation of his life expectancy will leave considerable residual
uncertainty.

We have
wrestled in previous cases with the question whether life expectancy statistics should figure in sentencing for
offenses for which Congress has not
authorized a life sentence. Our court has concluded, as have other courts, thatHN2- a sentence
although it is

a term of years is likely or even certain [**8] to be a
de facto life sentence because of the inmate's age is improper if the statute
under which he was convicted provides that only a jury can authorize a life sentence (18 U.S.C. § 34, applicable to certain drug
offenses).:..

The propensity
to engage in criminal activity declines with age, and is, on average, sharply lower for persons over 70 -
although persons 65 and older are 13 percent of
the population, they account for only seven
tenths of one percent of arrests. FBI, "Crime in the United States: Arrests by Age, 2010," www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u. s/2010/crirne-in-the-u. s-2010/tables/10tb138. xls; U.S. Census Bureau, "The Older Population:
2010" 2 (Nov. 2011), www.census..gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010hr-09.pdf(both
visited: on June 1, 2012); see also United States V. Bullion, 466 F.3d 574, 577

(7thCir.
2006); [**31 Catherine F. Lewis at al.,
"A Study of Geriatric Forensic Evaluees: Who are the Violent Elderly," 34 J..AM. Academy of Psychiatry &
Law 324, 324 (2006); Richard A. Posner, Aging and Old Age 128-33, 310-15 (1995). There is both an
aging effect and a selection effect:
the cost of acquiring criminal skills increases with age, and career criminals, who already possess such skills, are
likely to retire from crime before reaching old age because repeated crimes bring increasingly heavy sentences. Id. at
132-33. Persons convicted of a crime committed when they are 70 or older are
thus unlikely to commit further
crimes even if released after a short term
of imprisonment. Cf. U.S. Sentencing Commission, "Measuring

This blog is a companion to our Parole web page. Wisconsin has 2887 prisoners who are eligible for parole but are denied year after year. We are part of a campaign to see that these people get a second chance. They are all long past their parole dates. We want to spread the message loud and clear that people DO Change. Below are some of the stories and profiles of the many people stuck in a broken and wasteful system.